Charles IX
1550 – 1574 · 24 years · Paris · Europe
Reign: 1560 – 1574 (Franks and France)
He became king at ten under the regency of his mother, Catherine de’ Medici. He sanctioned the St Bartholomew’s Day massacre of Huguenots in 1572 and died of tuberculosis aged 23.
Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 16th century
Portrait: Didier Descouens · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
Contemporaries around the world
Europe
- Elizabeth I — Queen of England, 17 years older
- Miguel de Cervantes — Spanish novelist, 3 years older
- Michelangelo — sculptor, painter and architect, 75 years older
- William Shakespeare — English playwright and poet, 14 years younger
- Galileo Galilei — Italian physicist and astronomer, 14 years younger
- Philip II of Spain — King of Spain, 23 years older
Eastern Europe & Russia
- Ivan the Terrible — first Tsar of Russia, 20 years older
- Yermak Timofeyevich — Cossack conqueror of Siberia, 18 years older
- Boris Godunov — Tsar of Russia, 2 years younger
- Vasily Shuisky — boyar tsar of the Time of Troubles who died in Polish captivity, 2 years younger
- Feodor I — last Rurikid tsar, under whom the Moscow Patriarchate was founded, 7 years younger
Middle East
- Selim II — sultan who took Cyprus and lost at Lepanto, 26 years older
- Suleiman the Magnificent — Ottoman sultan, 56 years older
- Taqi ad-Din Muhammad ibn Ma'ruf — Ottoman astronomer and engineer, 24 years older
- Murad III — sultan who won the Caucasus from the Safavids, 4 years older
Africa
- Ahmad al-Mansur — Sultan of Morocco, 1 year older
- Ahmed Baba — Timbuktu scholar, 6 years younger
Asia
- Akbar the Great — Mughal emperor, 8 years older
- Tokugawa Ieyasu — first Tokugawa shogun, 7 years older
- Oda Nobunaga — Japanese warlord, 16 years older
- Toyotomi Hideyoshi — unifier of Japan, 13 years older
- Ashikaga Yoshiaki — last Ashikaga shogun, expelled by Nobunaga, 13 years older
- Yi Sun-sin — Korean admiral, 5 years older
Americas
- Bartolomé de las Casas — friar and defender of Native Americans, 66 years older
- Inca Garcilaso de la Vega — chronicler, son of a conquistador and an Inca princess, 11 years older
The world in their lifetime
- 1555–1561 Saint Basil's Cathedral — aged 5, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1556 Shaanxi earthquake — aged 6, Asia
- 1556 Akbar and the Second Battle of Panipat — aged 6, Asia
- 1569 Union of Lublin — aged 19, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1571 Battle of Lepanto — aged 21, Europe
- 1572 St Bartholomew's Day Massacre — aged 22, Europe